Back in the entry cave Kent gave himself another coating of blood and the willpower sigil and affirmed that with the system.

New Notification Log Entries:

You have increased your Willpower stat by three!

Your effective willpower is adjusting.

Divergence detected.

Effective Stat desynchronization detected.

Insufficient external Sigils available.

External blood used for internal Sigils.

Please stand by.

Before he passed out again, he considered how unfair it was that simply knowing more sigils would save him hours, maybe days. Getting titles that were boosting attributes to which he didn’t know the corresponding sigils sucked.

***

Awaking felt odd, but better than the last time were he had almost drowned after being poisoned by a turrl – maybe there was a title for that as well. He could see it in front of him already.

Victim of Idocracy, or something of the sort would just be splendid. Though I guess it would be nice if it gave extra vitality – which I should probably begin investing into. We was sure he would do so next level. His mother would have probably let him starve, stuck in his room were she to get wind of him not investing into vitality. His father probably wouldn’t speak to him if he deviated from the allocation he recommended.

But he could go screw himself because he wasn’t around. The part of him that was frustrated with the lack of support his family had given him wished for his father to end up in a similar situation. Though maybe not as bad.

He inspected his status, just to see whether anything of import had happened, and apparently, it did. He had gained a new line of information associated with each of the pools. The minimum and maximum values of regeneration available to him.

The range given was easy to decipher. The minimum was no doubt the base regeneration he would experience whenever he wasn’t resting. Somewhere in the middle would be his relaxed regeneration and the maximum would be his rest regeneration.

Kent Larsson [Level 4] [20%]

Pools:

  Health: 67/67

  Health Reg: 14 – 21 /d

  Stamina: 34/150

  Stamina Reg: 38 – 59 /d

  Mana: 28/48

  Mana Reg: 51 – 79 /d

Stats (0 Free Stat points):

  Vitality 14

  Toughness 11

  Endurance 27

  Strength 23

  Agility 21

  Senses 12

  Mind 11

  Magic 24

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  Willpower 51

  Regeneration 14

Skills (0 Free Skill Point):

  Accelerate Metal (2/10) (9/100 Exp.)

  Penetrate (2/10) (85/100 Exp.)

  Metallic Affinity (1/10) (44/50 Exp.)

His stamina was a little low, but he would be able to get Penetrate to the next rank in the next excursion. The same went for Metallic Affinity, which leveled differently. Instead of relying on resources used to increase in potency, it gained experience for each iteration used.

Because he didn’t want to waste any resources on not leveling the skill, he had decided to recast Accelerate Metal every time its one-second channel time was over instead of just keeping it going – not that he had to use that method yet. He could try at a later point when he had more mana to throw around.

Looking at his skills he grinned before stretching a bit and leaving the cave. He had encountered a level fifteen distributer going a quarter around the pond, which was a challenge he would rather not undergo so soon again, so this time he went to the right as he exited the cave into the pond.

The fighting started out easy again as his first encounters identified as level nine or lower, but even those monsters proved enough to bring both Metallic Affinity and Penetrate to the next level.

The boost to his melee skill was not super apparent, but noticeable in the long run. His shoulder hurt a lot less. He also found out the hard way that he couldn’t use Penetrate on both of his knives at the same time. The four punctures by a turrls claws he received in return was fairly shallow and had only cost a few health points, but that was why he was testing on the lower-leveled monsters. And they did hurt a lot. Thankfully they didn’t carry the venom as far as he knew, but he rested for a while afterward just to be sure.

It was quite curious that the three turrls he had killed had each given ten percent level progress. He would have imagined that now where their respective difference in level was lower, he might have finally gotten values below the cap. But apparently, he was not there just yet.

To Kent’s surprise, fighting had gotten easier this time around. He wasn’t sure what it was specifically, but it didn’t feel like a struggle for survival but rather a challenge, one he would most likely not fail in the immediate future. His stance was more relaxed, and his grip wasn’t as forceful anymore. Losing a knife here wouldn’t be his death. He could always find it again or use his skill to make it come to him.

Or maybe it was simply because his opponents were almost a joke at this point. Unevolved creatures were barely a hassle anymore and he could even dispatch them without using skills in a couple of minutes, with minimal stamina expenditure. Of course, this wasn’t the point of this venture. He had to get stronger skills if he wanted to proceed further into the dungeon, so he used most of what he had as freely as he could, keeping a reserve for the stronger enemies that were sure to come.

When he had cleared the landing area of the shore, he slowly moved further into the woods, towards the weird border of the dungeon. He had previously speculated that turrls might be affected differently by the magical effects happening there and was on his way to find out if it could be used to his advantage.

He dispatched a pair of level eleven and twelve turrls within a few minutes each. The earlier ease of fighting had vanished and was replaced by the stressful slug that each encounter had been. His sudden calm seemed to have been a faux after all.

The fight brought him to seventy percent class progression and to the edge of the dungeon. From here it was more or less easy pickings to find monsters and attract them.

Making a ruckus was a little too dangerous, but hitting trees with his canteen as quietly as possible worked well enough. The metallic clambering echoing for dozens of paces, drawing whatever was close by.

It was a pair that approached first. From the looks, he would say an agitator pair. His guess was quickly confirmed as neither of the two spit at him. He focused on the larger of the two, thinking it would be best to test things out with the weaker of the pair.

Two strikes and a combination of three well-placed Penetrates removed the level fourteen turrl as a threat. With only one monster remaining the two opponents stared each other down. The monster trying to find an approach that would not make it fall victim to Kent’s weapons before it could land a hit. Kent meanwhile was slowly retreating further back towards the distorted space.

The moment he noticed his clothes growing tighter he prepared to attack the turrl. It followed Kent who had passed a tree in close vicinity.

The moment he noticed what the turrl would do next, he changed his angle of movement to walk away directly.

He stumbled over a root that he would swear hadn’t been there before and the turrl charged.

And without any other indication of something odd going on, the turrl disappeared.

Confusion visible on his face, he stood up and prepared himself for a surprise attack, figuring this to be a new version of turrl he hadn’t encountered thus far. But nothing happened. No monster attacked and none was visible to his untrained eyes.

The amount of uncertainty involved with this situation made him uncomfortable and slightly worried. His hope was that the monster might have been absorbed by the dungeon and would be reinstituted somewhere else, because the other options he could come up with weren’t fun.

Carefully he left the compressed region of space to seek out new foes. He threw one last glance behind and saw a turrl flying directly for his face.